Self harm, often in the form of cutting, is a quit popular coping strategy among adolescents these days. Which I think is sad when there are so many healthy alternatives.
Like running.
In high school and junior high I was a distance runner. I ran cross-country in the fall and track in the spring. In high school I joined the swim team so I had that to keep me active, busy and pushing the pain outlet boundaries all school year long.
My peers often said I must be masochist to enjoy running, especially at my speeds. Maybe they were right (although not by the "sexual pleasure" definition) as these activities also helped to combat depression far more than I understood at the time. While there may have been something to the pain causing of this outlet, it helped to combat depression in many other ways; the physical activity helped and the social interaction helped. Being and feeling part of a team, having friends, goals, people who cared about you all helped.
I wish I could teach that to others, especially to teens, these days. I wish I could help as a licensed therapist and psychologist certified educator because, like it or not, when you have that title people listened better and trust you more and you have significantly more opportunities to address larger audiences. But those opportunities have been denied to me and even stripped from me...
I'd say, "oh well," but I don't really mean it because it hurts. But that is not what I wanted to write about, maybe I need to allow a tear or two to fall though, in order to healthily grieve that significant and painful loss and maybe that is why it came out here and now...
But now I am going to turn my thoughts to what I really wanted to do; write casually and even playfully about running on a team and how that can relieve a lot of pain while causing pain.
"Run 'til you hurl!"
David, I believe that was his name, the boy who would push himself so hard he'd throw up. It was discouraging to him and even embarrassing that he could not push himself hard enough to be one of the best. But he was still there trying and pushing and, instead of shaming him for his embarrassing reaction of throwing up after a race, we, as a team, embraced him and his curse by making it our motto. Thus began tradition of shouting "Run 'til you hurl" as our team cheer just before the beginning of each race. We even preserved this silly camaraderie by making it our team t-shirt. The image was created by one of our teammates; a-stickfigure-esgue outline that at first glance just looked like a cool lined design but upon further inspection was realized to be a figure hunched over hurling to match the motto that was printed on the shirts.
Personally, I never could never quite push myself that hard. Nor could I push myself as hard as Violet, the slightly to very odd duck that decided to run track our sophomore year. Now Violet was one of those people that nobody can quite figure out. She's intelligent in many ways but likely low scoring on IQ tests. One of the things that was particularly odd about Violet was that she would often moan and groan as she was running as if she were in great agony. But she also seemed oblivious to social cues and how behaving like this would effect others opinion and comfort with her. Although we did observe the practice of moaning and groaning while running did seem to have interesting effects on the other teams' runners. Ultimately Violet's obliviousness was probably a good thing for her because, although she often made others quite uncomfortable and was often over-dramatic, she was generally happy and oblivious to the reactions people would sometimes have to her.
Katie was another distance runner. Only Katie was a senior, established runner, and very NissanZ-driving-cool. Although well known she was not one of the most popular but only because she really was too cool for that. If she hadn't been a runner she was the type of girl you'd expect to see Jame's Dean style leaned up against the corner of the school smoking, but never smelling of it and, albeit cool and collected, too tough to be harassed by any teachers.
Naturally Violet, was especially annoying to Katie. But Katie would usually just roll her eyes and walk away from the annoyance trying to ensure she gave Violet no reason to think they were in anyway friends. But Violet did not get the hint as was solidly confirmed on the day Katie and Violet were both assigned to run the mile race. I am not sure why I was not running the mile that day, it was my usual event and I was almost always the fastest, but I also ran the two-mile, 800meter and the 400 meter (my least favorite) and the coaches usually would not put you on the 1 mile and 2 mile on the same day, so I got to watch and man am I glad I did.
As Violet, who was quite far behind Katie, rounded the corner of her second to last lap she very dramatically, and with much moaning and groaning, collapsed, and dragged herself off of the track as if she had pushed herself just as hard as she possibly could and beyond. Katie, shortly after rounded this same corner in one of the top three positions, well ahead of the majority runners. But as she approached Violet's corner, you could see Violet, in her arms-propped-side-lying position lifts herself just enough to yell very loudly -shockingly loudly for a person who had just collapsed off of the track- "GO KATIE, GO KATIE, DO IT FOR ME, DO IT FOR ME!" Even from the complete opposite side of the quarter mile track you could see Katie's eyes narrow into a death-threatening glare as her always-straight-forward face went beat red and visibly hesitated for just a moment making us all fear she would stop and walk right off the track in the opposite direction just to ensure that Violet knew she was NOT going to do ANYTHING for her.
It was SOOO FUNNY! And after that Katie let her disdain for Violet flow freely from her lips as she admitted our fear of her throwing the race was precisely on her mind in that moment. Fortunately she did not unleash on Violet, and only to those of us who understood the whole situation. And fortunately, as pissed as it made Katie, she still was able to laugh or at least allow us to laugh about it.
But, although it ended for Katie and the other team members who graduated that year and Violet who quit running shortly after that race, the story did not end there as we took these comical observances with us into the cross-country season the next year.
.
At some point, early on during practices for the cross-country season of my junior year, when we were missing and reminiscing Katie and Addy (the other too-cool-previous-year-senior), we began discussing Violets odd habit of moaning and groaning. This lead to the collective decision that maybe were should try it to see if it somehow helped. So we started moaning and groaning as we ran, our coach Bob, who would run with us, not at all sure what to make of us but unable to completely hide his amusement. Of course it just made us laugh so hard we could hardly run at all, but somehow this experiment still evolved into a very bizarre team ritual.
In our analyzing discussion we noted our observances of the effects Violet's moaning and groaning would have on the other team members. Often people would suddenly drop back from her, not sure make of it. Usually they'd pick their pace up again and wide-birth-style pass her, but for those of us who were in ranking positions, we recognized that this little drop back by the other team could be just enough to give us the winning edge. Soooo
We had to try it out. We, the girls cross-country team, decided to do it for Violet! and at the beginning of the next race, right after the gun fired and everyone started the running, we all, and yes all, let out a huge overly-dramatic moaning-groaning breath and then just kept on running, holding our laughter until after the race. Sure enough, it worked. It shocked the other team so much that they did hesitate and look around in confusion as we all got out with great controlled start.
Thus began the second ritual of the my last two years of high schools cross-country: 1st "RUN 'TIL YOU HURL!" 2nd a very loud moaning and groaning at the beginning of the race, even at State.
So Run 'til you hurl and moan and groan if you need to but whatever you do, don't quit running!
